


Shards of Memory

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Characters - Well-handled emotions, Drama, First Age, Plot - Bittersweet, Writing - Clear prose, Writing - Every word counts, Writing - Evocative, Writing - Well-handled PoV(s), Writing - Well-handled introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4215389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six snapshot looks at the relationship between Túrin Turambar and Finduilas of Nargothrond. Finduilas' POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shards of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

**I.**

I would I had never laid eyes on you, Adanedhel.

But you smiled and caught my soul in your secret, in your eyes like labyrinths of memory, and I lost my way on the paths winding away into the darkness, leading to nowhere. Yet you laughed and called me sister.

I would I had never heard your voice, Adanedhel.

But my name on your lips bore the echo of a distant sorrow, the fading tune of a childhood past. It was then that I knew I was lost.

I would I had never known your name, Thurin. Yet it whispers in the depths of my heart, the slow counterpoint to a warning I would not heed. Not even now.

 

**II.**

I once told you that I wished I had a brother as valiant and when you looked at me, there was a shadow in your eyes that made me shiver.

I named you Thurin, the Secret, and you flinched. I did not know then how close I had come to the truth, how close I had come to the labyrinth’s centre without knowing it. But I was afraid and loved you all the more despite my fear.

It is strange how clearly I see your face in my thoughts, like a monument carved from stone, only more beautiful and more dangerous than all the statues of the Earth.

I would not have a brother now.

 

**III.**

I remember the candlelight dancing in my mother’s eyes as she told us stories of a lifetime past in a voice of velvet. Stories of light and darkness and a love as wide as the endless sea. I remember wanting to drown, then.

His lips were warm as he promised to return.

And I waited, waited and dreamed of the candlelight dancing in my mother’s eyes and her velvet voice. I dreamed of a sea of storms and a tide to shake the foundations of the earth.

But his lips were cold when he returned and when I looked at you I was afraid.

 

**IV.**

I lied to him that night. When I said that you loved me not and never would, I lied. I lied to myself for fear my heart would break like glass from the weight of my dreams.

I hated him that night, for bringing you here and drowning our future in the depths of your eyes.

And I hated you, for your secret and your darkness. I hated you that night for your coldness and your distance and the way you seem to say everything and yet say nothing at all.

I hated you and my treacherous heart burned with hope.

 

**V.**

Your shadow has become my own, Mormegil, and the blade of your black sword has cut my heart in two.

Where are my songs and my laughter? Where is the stream and the sunlight? You have taken them away from me, taken it all away, and there’s a lump of tears in my throat as I realise I don’t ever want them back.

He says that I have changed and that he knows me not, yet he still loves me. I love him, too, in a way. Yet the flowers pale with jealousy at the beauty of winter’s chill.

And Faelivrin is no more.

 

**VI.**

It makes no difference now, the pain. It has been my companion all these years and I have come to love its caress because it reminds me of you. I loved you once, with all my heart until I found that hearts fail. So I loved you with all my soul only to find that souls falter. I love you now, with the certainty of death and time may forgive me, I failed you.

Farewell, Adanedhel, full of sorrow, and Agarwaen, brother, with your eyes of shadow.  
Farewell, Mormegil whom they feared, and Thurin whom I loved.

Farewell, Túrin son of Húrin.

In the darkness descending I remember Faelivrin.

 

***  
 **Author’s Notes:**

_Adanedhel_ – ‘Elf-Man’, the name given to Túrin in Nargothrond  
 _Thurin_ – ‘the Secret’, name given to Túrin by Finduilas of Nargothrond (Unfinished Tales)

_“’... But you are queenly, and as a golden tree; I would I had a sister so fair.’_  
‘But you are kingly,’ said she, ‘even as the lords of the people of Fingolfin; I would I had a brother so valiant. And I do not think that Agarwaen is your true name, nor is it fit for you, Adanedhel. I call you Thurin, the Secret.’  
At this Túrin started, but he said: ‘That is not my name; and I am not a king, for our kings are of the Eldar, as I am not.’” 

(Unfinished Tales - Narn i Hîn Húrin)

_“Then Finduilas sat long in thought; but at the last she said only: ‘Túrin son of Húrin loves me not, nor will.’”_

(The Silmarillion - Of Túrin Turambar)

_Mormegil_ – ‘The Black Sword’, name given to Túrin as captain of the host of Nargothrond  
 _Faelivrin_ – ‘the gleam of the sun on the pools of Ivrin’, the name given to Finduilas of Nargothrond by Gwindor  
 _Agarwaen_ – ‘Blood-stained’, name given to himself by Túrin when he came to Nargothrond


End file.
